1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a broadcast-program selection history information acquisition apparatus and its method and is preferably applied to a broadcast-program selection history information acquisition apparatus and its method for storing data as a basis of collecting the audience-rating of a television broadcast program (hereinafter, referred to as audience-rating data) in satellite broadcasting and transmitting it to an audience-rating totalization center.
2. Description of the Related Art
The audience-rating of an analog-television broadcast program telecasted from a broadcasting station is examined by a specific audience-rating examination system with, for example, the number of samples of approximately 500 to 600 households. The audience-rating examination system acquires the audience-rating data by a specific adapter installed in a television receiver of an audience, and transfers the audience-rating data to a predetermined totalization center. The predetermined totalization center computes the audience-rating result of each broadcast program based on the audience-rating data thus totalized, and communicates the result to a broadcasting enterprise or a broadcast program production company.
The broadcasting enterprise considers the continuation or end of the broadcast program based on the audience-rating result for each broadcast program and reports the audience-rating result to a sponsor company broadcasting commercials in the intervals of a broadcast program, and thereby continues a sponsor contract or picks out a new sponsor company of broadcasting commercials based on the audience-rating result. Moreover, the broadcast program production company decides the degree of the popular spirit of the broadcast program based on the audience-rating result and studies the contents of a new broadcast program to be next produced.
Therefore, the audience-rating result is a very important factor for the broadcasting enterprise or the broadcast program production company, and it is desired that the audience-rating result is computed based on the audience-rating data of audiences as many as possible.
By the way, satellite broadcasting using a communications satellite is realized in recent years and there is a receiver referred to as an integrated receiver decoder (IRD) which receives a digitized television signal. The IRD can selectively receive a multiplicity of broadcast programs encoded and broadcasted in a predetermined digital picture compression method from a broadcasting station, and display the broadcast program selected by a user on a monitor or a television receiver by decoding the broadcast program through an internal decoder.
In the IRD having the above structure, a pay-per-view program can be watched. That is, when an user watches the pay-per-view program, the audience history information is stored in the IC card which is removably mounted on the IRD. The IRD comprising a modem, reads the audience history information stored in IC card at a predetermined timing, and transfers the read audience history information to a charging center through the modem and the public telephone network. Thereby, the user is charged for the watched pay-per-view program.
Conventionally, in such digital broadcasting, the IRD is not provided with the function of collecting the audience-rating data. Therefore, in the digital broadcasting, to collect the audience-rating data, there is no means but to install a predetermined adapter in the outside of the IRD as same as in the analog broadcasting.